The Dark Divide (36 page)

Brydie was jostled again as Anwen tied the necklace around her neck. ‘There are problems, my lady?’

Delphine nodded as she raised her hood, pulling the cloak a little tighter against the chill. ‘The circle we use in the realm where I have been working was destroyed recently.’ She sighed, shaking her head. ‘Be grateful you’ve been sent to a realm where there is enough magic that you can leave anytime you need,
ma cherie
. Not all of us have been so lucky.’

Sent?
Brydie thought.
What does she mean by sent? Is Anwen not of this realm?

What is she? A rift runner spy from another realm?

‘
The
Matrarchaí
are the reason the line has never been broken
,’ the queen had told Brydie in the wagon on the way to
Sí an Bhrú
. ‘
The reason why, after sixty-six generations, humans still occupy
Sí an Bhrú.’ She had also said, ‘
The
Matrarchaí
know the secret of producing the psychic twins needed to preserve the Treaty of
Tír Na nÓg.’

But not the
Matrarchaí
of this realm
, Brydie realised.

‘It’s going to take me days to get back,’ Delphine sighed, ‘and once I do, it’s going to be difficult to leave again, until I can find another platform high enough off the ground to tap into the little magic that remains in the Enchanted Sphere.’

The two of them began to walk toward the entrance to the grove. Presumably, Delphine was headed to the stone circle near Temair where she would open a rift and return to her own realm.

‘It is easy to forget sometimes,’ Lady Delphine added, ‘just how the politics and religion of realms which don’t even know of our existence, can impact upon our plans.’

Where are you, Darragh?
Brydie wondered.
Do you know about these strangers lurking in your realm, plotting to bring you down?

Does Álmhath know Anwen is a spy?
She certainly knew something was afoot, but was she a party to it? Or was she being duped by these women of this alien
Matrarchaí
?

‘You don’t worry about being stranded in a reality without magic, my lady?’ Anwen asked. She spoke to Lady Delphine with more deference and respect than she had ever shown Queen Álmhath.

‘Constantly,’ Delphine replied. ‘And in the realm where I have been working these past thirty years, it is worse than most.’

‘Why take such a risk?’

‘Because a realm with depleted magic is the one place we can be sure we are safe from
Tuatha Dé Danann
spies. It’s frustrating to be working so hard toward securing magic for our own kind from a world where our kind have all but destroyed it. Were it not for their engineering expertise I would never be able to open a rift in the realm.’

‘They have mechanical rifts?’ Anwen asked, sounding surprised.

‘They build ludicrously tall buildings,’ Delphine corrected. ‘So high they reach the Enchanted Sphere.’ The women reached the entrance to the grove. The moon remained hidden from view behind the clouds. Delphine stopped and turned to face Anwen, giving Brydie a much better view of her. It must have been cold, she thought, because Delphine’s breath frosted faintly as she spoke. ‘The destruction of my circle has set my work back months. You are not my only charge, Anwen. There are other realms where Partition has already been achieved, and I am cut off from them temporarily. I’m not sure when I can get back here again. But you seem to have things in hand. There are other places where my intervention is needed.’

‘I can hold things together, my lady, until you return.’

Delphine nodded and leaned forward to gently touch her fingertips to the amethyst around Anwen’s neck. ‘Keep our little friend safe, then, Anwen,’ she ordered. ‘This realm will have need of her if we are to achieve Partition here in our lifetime.’

She’s a Partitionist
, Brydie realised. Her father bordered on being one, but his hope of one day escaping the bonds of the Treaty of
Tír Na nÓg
, and what he called the oppressive rule of the
Tuatha Dé Danann
, was something he merely ranted about around the hearth when he’d drunk too much mead with his friends in winter. She was sure he knew nothing of a group from another realm working to separate humans from
sídhe
magic.

‘Can you find your way back to the circle from here, my lady?’

Delphine nodded. ‘I know the path very well, Anwen,’ she said. ‘I have visited many times before.’ She embraced the younger woman briefly. ‘You should return before you are missed.’ She took a step back, fixing her attention on Anwen’s necklace. ‘Do you suppose your little friend in the jewel knows what’s going on?’

‘I doubt it, my lady.’

Delphine leaned a little closer. Brydie could see her smiling. ‘Perhaps she is watching, listening, taking it all in.’ She straightened which enabled her to look Anwen in the eye. Her smile faded. ‘You may want to consider that.’

Anwen nodded … or it felt as though she did — Brydie couldn’t really see, but the jewel bobbed up and down for a moment. Delphine turned toward the trees and within moments she was lost in the darkness, leaving Anwen alone to sneak back into
Sí an Bhrú
.

Brydie sank to the floor with even more questions she couldn’t answer, not the least of which was the most important …

Was there some way to tell whether she was now pregnant with Darragh’s heir?

And if she was, what did the
Matrarchaí
want with her child?

CHAPTER 36

‘What do you think?’ Pete asked Annad Semaj when he emerged from the interview room.

Annad paused, sneezed and wiped his red, chafed nose before answering. ‘I think I could do a PhD on this kid.’

‘Is he schizophrenic?’

‘Hard to say after only one interview. I’m guessing not. As a rule, schizophrenia is characterised by relatively stable, albeit paranoid, delusions, which our boy has in spades. But the delusions are usually accompanied by hallucinations, mostly auditory, and often perceptual disturbances as well. This lad displays none of that.’

‘He talks like he’s hallucinating, but he doesn’t act like it?’ Pete asked.

‘Exactly,’ Annad said. ‘He displays no disturbances of affect, volition or speech. On the other hand, he appears to have delusions of persecution, believes he’s of exalted birth and that he has a special mission. He is Darragh of the Undivided, he says, and claims to rule this alternate reality he comes from.’ Annad walked over to the coffee vending machine and began to fish around in his pocket for coins. ‘Have you checked the local mental hospitals for missing patients? That could explain where he’s been all this time.’

‘Not a bad idea. You think he’s been institutionalised?’

‘I have no idea, to be honest,’ Annad admitted. ‘I would have expected him to display more awareness of the process, if he had. Do you have any change on you?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

Annad shrugged. ‘Oh well … it’s crap coffee in that machine anyway. Where was I?’

‘You were telling me Darragh doesn’t act like someone who’s been institutionalised. Or he does. To be honest, I’m not sure.’

‘There’s the rub,’ Annad said. ‘I don’t know either. The paranoid schizophrenia may be episodic and we’ve got him on a good day. He might be in partial or complete remission. He might be chronic, although I doubt it. In chronic cases, florid symptoms tend to persist over a number of years. It’s difficult to distinguish discrete episodes.’

‘We have to arraign him in the morning.’

Annad pursed his lips thoughtfully for a moment and then nodded. ‘Well, if it’s a preliminary assessment you want, then he’s probably sane enough to appear in court. He knows right from wrong and he would be more than capable of assisting with his own defence. Today, at any rate.’

‘Did he give you any clue about where to find Hayley Boyle?’

Annad shook his head. ‘His story never wavered on that point. She has been sent to another reality to have her blindness healed, along with his twin brother and the girl, Trása. He insists
she’s
half-Faerie.’

Pete sighed, shaking his head. ‘Christ, the tabloids are going to have a field day over this when he appears on tomorrow’s docket.’

‘Only if they hear about it,’ Annad pointed out. ‘If there is anything positive to come out of that awful business in New York, it’s that nobody is interested in anything else at the moment. Our boy may slip under the radar, if we’re lucky. Does he have a solicitor yet?’

‘He’ll get a court-appointed one in the morning, I suppose. Kiva Kavanaugh has washed her hands of the whole affair, so at least we don’t have the dreaded Eunice Ravenel to contend with any longer.’

‘Shame,’ Annad sighed. ‘I have this recurring fantasy about Eunice Ravenel cross-examining me.’

Pete smiled briefly, but then his smile faded as he asked, ‘Between you and me, do you think he killed Hayley?’

‘My gut feeling is “no”.’

‘Then where is she?’

‘In an alternate reality,’ Annad said with a grin. ‘Having her blindness cured by the
Tuatha Dé Danann
.’

‘You’re a big help, Annad. I’ll be sure to put that in my report.’

‘I’m here to help you, Pete,’ the psychiatrist reminded him, clasping his shoulder comfortingly. ‘You can be sure my remarkable contribution to your case will be reflected in my bill.’

‘You’ll have something for me for court in the morning?’

Annad nodded. ‘I’ll write something up about the delusions and how they’re characteristic of schizophrenia, but that’s about all I can give you at this stage.’

‘It’ll have to do,’ Pete said. ‘In the meantime, I’ll send him back to the cells. Maybe another night in remand will jog his memory.’ He glanced at his watch, and cursed when he remembered he was supposed to be meeting his brother at his grandmother’s house.

‘Is there a problem?’

‘I have to be somewhere,’ he said. ‘Can you be in court tomorrow morning, in case his lawyer tries to pull a fast one and get him released because he’s crazy?’

‘I’ll be there,’ Annad promised. ‘And not just for you. This young man intrigues me. I want to see how he acts in court when he’s not so aware he’s being watched.’

‘See you then,’ Pete said.

‘You can count on it,’ Annad Semaj said.

There were almost as many people gathered at his grandmother’s house as there had been the night of her birthday party. Logan’s Ferrari was parked in the drive. His cousin Kelly’s Volvo was pulled in behind it, blocking him in. Pete took a deep breath — as he always did — before he knocked on the door. He needed to brace himself for whatever family celebration or catastrophe he was about to step into.

Logan opened the door. Pete stared at him, knowing instantly that he wasn’t here to celebrate anything.

‘Is Mamó okay?’ he asked, thinking that the most likely explanation for this summons. She was an old woman, after all. It wasn’t out of the realms of possibility that something had happened to her since Pete saw her last.

‘She’s fine,’ Logan told him.

‘Then why the summons?’ Pete asked as he stepped into the hall and Logan closed the door behind him.

‘Come inside,’ Logan said. ‘I don’t want to have to explain this over and over.’

Pete thought his twin was being dramatic just for the sake of being dramatic, but he followed him into Mamó’s stifling living room without telling him he thought that. Mamó was in her chair, as usual, Kelly was sitting on the sofa, her husband, Xavier, was standing by the window. Everyone was looking like someone had run over the family dog. In fact, the only one missing was his mother, who should be on her way back from her trip to America by now, probably with some young ingénue in tow, ready to unleash her on the European world of high fashion.

He crossed the room, kissed Mamó’s papery, wrinkled cheek and then turned to his family. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I got a text message from your mother on Tuesday,’ Kelly said, reaching for her husband’s hand and squeezing it. She seemed on the verge of tears.

‘Really?’ he asked. ‘You made me take the afternoon off work in the middle of a really high profile kidnap case for that?’

Xavier leaned forward, offering Pete the phone. ‘Read it.’

Pete flipped open the phone. The message was already on the screen.

Will call you Tuesday, cherie
, the message read.

He read the message a couple of times, and then shrugged and handed the phone back to Kelly’s husband. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘She never rang.’

‘After the World Trade Center was hit, Kelly tried ringing her,’ his cousin-in-law explained. ‘When she couldn’t contact her, she called me and I called her office here in Dublin. They told me she was due at the New York office that morning. Apparently it’s not uncommon for her to disappear for days at a time when she’s travelling.’ He glanced around the room. ‘Did any of you know that?’

They all did, but it was such a part of their lives, none of them had given it much thought until now.

‘I’m not sure you know this, but the New York office is located on the hundred and sixth floor of the World Trade Center,’ Kelly announced.

‘Do we know if she made it to her office in New York that morning?’ Pete asked. He hadn’t known about the office. The first tendrils of dread were starting to thread through his veins.

‘Nobody has been able to contact her since Tuesday,’ Logan said in a toneless voice that was more disturbing than Kelly’s overt grief.

Pete suddenly felt himself go cold all over.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, giving voice to what everyone here seemed to know but was too afraid to say outright. ‘You think she was in the World Trade Center when it was hit?’

‘If she wasn’t, why hasn’t she rung us to let us know she’s okay?’ Kelly asked, her eyes filling with tears. ‘She must know we’d be beside ourselves if we didn’t hear from her.’

Kelly had a point, but something bothered Pete more. He turned to his brother. ‘Did you know she had an office in the World Trade Center?’